Vale S.A. engages in the research, production, and marketing of iron ore and pellets, nickel, fertilizers, copper, coal, manganese, ferroalloys, cobalt, platinum group metals, and precious metals in Brazil and internationally. The stock currently has a dividend yield of 1%. VALE has a PE ratio of 12.3. Currently there are 6 analysts that rate Vale a buy, 1 analyst rates it a sell, and 5 rate it a hold.

The average volume for Vale has been 17.7 million shares per day over the past 30 days. Vale has a market cap of $67.9 billion and is part of the basic materials sector and metals & mining industry. Shares are down 10.8% year-to-date as of the close of trading on Tuesday.

TheStreet Quant Ratings rates Vale as a hold. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its revenue growth, increase in net income and attractive valuation levels. However, as a counter to these strengths, we also find weaknesses including a generally disappointing performance in the stock itself, disappointing return on equity and weak operating cash flow.

Highlights from the ratings report include:

The revenue growth came in higher than the industry average of 2.4%. Since the same quarter one year prior, revenues rose by 13.9%. Growth in the company's revenue appears to have helped boost the earnings per share.

VALE SA reported significant earnings per share improvement in the most recent quarter compared to the same quarter a year ago. This company has reported somewhat volatile earnings recently. But, we feel it is poised for EPS growth in the coming year. During the past fiscal year, VALE SA reported lower earnings of $0.94 versus $3.87 in the prior year. This year, the market expects an improvement in earnings ($2.23 versus $0.94).

Net operating cash flow has decreased to $4,632.98 million or 21.96% when compared to the same quarter last year. Despite a decrease in cash flow VALE SA is still fairing well by exceeding its industry average cash flow growth rate of -37.32%.

VALE's stock share price has done very poorly compared to where it was a year ago: Despite any rallies, the net result is that it is down by 30.67%, which is also worse that the performance of the S&P 500 Index. Investors have so far failed to pay much attention to the earnings improvements the company has managed to achieve over the last quarter. Despite the heavy decline in its share price, this stock is still more expensive (when compared to its current earnings) than most other companies in its industry.